I mentioned in the last Zermatt post, the struggles of finding good eats in mega touristy destinations. In picture perfect, car free Wengen, the challenge was similar. I got bored with researching food here fairly quickly. In fact I spent more time researching Basque Country, our next destination. Hence, I was winging it, or Wenging it if you will, more than usual.
Bären earns the distinction of being possibly the only place, in over 30+ years of travel, we ate in twice, other than one country we used to frequent. It’s not that Alpenkräuter Restaurant Bären, as it’s listed on Google, was flawless. Its just that after researching, trying a few others, and the first meal at Bären, it became clear that the probabilities of finding something better was very low.
Compared to the other places we tried, Bären felt like a real, well functioning, busy restaurant. Even though it’s inside a hotel, it didn’t feel like a hotel restaurant, unlike one place in the Belvedere we tried on our second night. It felt like a decent size family restaurant with elevated cooking. Daughter and mom run the front, dad cooks. And the entire hotel/restaurant is surrounded by their garden where they get much of the ingredients.
On both nights we enjoyed their exceptional soups, especially the creamy herb soup. And on both nights we enjoyed their superb salad. The older I get, the more I appreciate a good varied salad. A special of Halibut one night, was expertly cooked. A saddle of Lamb on another was another flavor packed winner. Tagliatelle, one of their specialties was fine, not great, but the kind of dish we appreciated after eating so much rustic fair.
The only miss was really the burger, a seemingly popular dish here. There’s a reason why you rarely see pulled beef on menus anywhere in the world. It just doesnt work, and it didnt work here. Besides not being better than a regular burger, it wasnt easy to eat.
Fantastic desserts, drinks, and friendly service on both nights. Prices are fair, for Switzerland. They really figured us Americans out. Many appetizers at around 19.50 seem fair. Add 1 or 2 more to go over 20 and oh boy, quite expensive 😉
Eating With Ziggy 